Overstock.com’s attempt to reverse a judge’s ruling in a deceptive-advertising case seeks a fundamental reinterpretation of California law that would greatly limit a business’s exposure to state and county consumer-protection lawsuits.

Lack of benefits and work continuity weighs heavily on temporary part-time city workers

For the last three years, Connor Crabb has been working as a recreation leader at Studio One, a city-run center in Oakland that offers after school and summer art classes to children.

But Crabb is running out of time at the center, himself. He is one of 2,500 Temporary Part-Time (TPT) workers employed by the city of Oakland, and they are not allowed to work for more than 960 hours per year—an average of 20 hours a week.

At special meeting, council members discuss Coliseum plans, police body cameras, city workers

The Oakland City Council chambers were filled to capacity on Tuesday evening for a special meeting of the Oakland Redevelopment Successor Agency, which is responsible for creating and enacting urban redevelopment plans in Oakland. Some of the most-discussed items on the agenda were the treatment of the city’s temporary part-time workers, a resolution in support of Assembly Bill 65, a proposed state bill that would fund body-worn cameras for local law enforcement agencies, and the development in the Oakland Coliseum area.

Oakland Day of the Dead altars shed light on political issues

Every autumn for the last eight years, Alicia Diaz has created an altar for the annual Day of the Dead festival in Oakland’s Fruitvale District. For this year’s altar, Diaz meticulously handcrafted brightly colored paper maché skeleton figures. The vibrant figures have distinctive colors and patterns as well as a serious meaning: The skeletons represent the unaccompanied children who have died crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in an attempt to flee the violence in their native Latin American countries.